High intensity light-emitting-diodes (LEDs) are becoming ubiquitous for home, commercial and industrial lighting. However, LEDs generate heat as well as light, and the color of the emitted light changes according to the temperature of the LED. Heat sinks are typically used to try to reduce the temperature fluctuations of the LED, and thus control the color. One current approach is to use fans to cool the LEDs' heat sinks. This method has several disadvantages, including the consumption of power to drive the fans, and the generation of noise by the fans. Other drawbacks include the space taken up by the fans, and the constraints of positioning the fans and heat sinks out of the optical paths. Some of the same issues arise for the cooling of other electronic devices and systems.
It is therefore desirable to provide an improved, small-footprint, passive cooling device that can be reliably attached to the system to be cooled. Optical transparency of any protruding elements, of such a device would be particularly advantageous in optical source cooling applications, in particular for cooling LEDs or other small light sources such as semiconductor lasers.